A terminally ill woman was ‘left cold and filthy’ in an Epsom Hospital ward already the source of a serious complaint, her daughter claims.

Zelanie Cooper has decried the treatment of her mother Patricia Osborne, 71, at the hospital’s Buckley Ward.

Mrs Cooper, 43, from Tadworth, said Mrs Osborne, who was recently diagnosed with stage four cancer, was left ‘degraded, humiliated and terrified’ by her experience on the ward, in which she was found smeared in her own excrement.

“Things like this shouldn’t be happening to people,” she said. “My mother deserved better than this."

Mrs Cooper’s complaint follows soon after the Surrey Advertiser revealed another family’s concerns about the Buckley Ward, which it described as ‘hell on Earth’.

Epsom Hospital has pledged to investigate the complaint fully and Mrs Cooper believes something must be done about the apparent systemic failures on the ward.

Mrs Osborne was brought to the accident and emergency room at Epsom on May 12 with a temperature and a very low white blood cell count, putting her at risk of an infection. It was then decided that she would be admitted to the hospital to receive a blood transfusion, intravenous antibiotics and a potassium solution, with doctors explaining that this was important due to her low readings.

“We left her at about 3pm and I came back around 7pm and all of her drips had been stopped. They told us that the pump required had been taken and nobody had ordered another and the blood transfusion hadn’t been done because a doctor hadn’t written up her notes.

“Nobody had tried to call a doctor. Eventually that was sorted at about 10pm.”

However it was when Mrs Cooper returned the following morning that she was shocked to discover her mother lying in bed covered in her own faeces.

“She was on antibiotics and bowel problems were a part of that, but she hadn’t been cleaned properly at all. It was so upsetting and demeaning.

“Then I looked at her toilet and saw it was in a terrible state. I couldn’t believe it.”

The following morning she returned to find Mrs Osborne ‘traumatised’.

“She was in a terrible state. She started crying and she was so distressed. She just kept saying that she wanted to go home.

“She said that a nurse had bullied her and told her that she was dirty and smelly. The room was absolutely revolting and there was faeces on the floor. She was so upset and degraded and she had just been left again.

“The nurse had also forced open the taped down window next to her and left it like that, so she was frozen by the cold draught and too scared to say anything about it.”

Mrs Cooper said the whole experience deeply affected her mother, who was ordinarily ‘strong and confident’ but had been hit hard by the news of her cancer just two months prior to the hospital visit.

“We have been reeling with that news and rallying together as a family,” she said. “This is the woman who means the most to me in the world and it breaks my heart that this happened to her. I wouldn’t treat an animal like that.”

Mrs Osborne refused to spend another night in the Buckley ward and eventually Mrs Cooper was able to arrange for her to be moved to another ward, where she said she received ‘exceptional’ care.

Hospital chief executive Chrisha Alagaratnam said the complaints about the ward were being taken ‘incredibly seriously’.

“To help us ensure a similar situation does not occur again, we have put additional staff on duty on the ward and the senior nursing team – including our matrons and head of nursing for medicine – are working closely with the ward.

“We have also met with each member of staff on the ward to discuss the levels of care our patients and the trust expect to see.

“That said I would also like to make it clear that we have some exceptional staff on the ward and across our hospitals, who are absolutely dedicated to providing our patients with compassionate care.

“However I was deeply concerned to read the issues raised by Mrs Osborne’s family and I would like to apologise for any distress caused to our patient and her loved ones.

“We are absolutely committed to protecting our patients’ privacy and dignity and where an individual member of staff fails to adhere to that commitment, we will take action.

“In this case, the member of staff referred to by the family no longer works for us. In addition when the cleanliness of the bathroom was brought to the attention of a different member of staff the area was cleaned very promptly.

“Senior members of our staff have met with the family on several occasions, and our understanding following these meetings and conversations was that they were satisfied with the actions we put in place.

“However there was a clear expectation that we investigate the concerns and that we write to the family to offer our formal apology. For this, I would like to say sorry.

“I can assure the family that this letter has been sent and the investigation is underway.”